


Lily through the looking glass

by green_dragons



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Other, scorpius is kind of there too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 14:30:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19747627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_dragons/pseuds/green_dragons
Summary: Lily's never felt attraction towards anyone... and she's slowly finding out that's not a bad thing.





	Lily through the looking glass

**_Twenty-six years and seems like I've just begun_ **  
**_To understand my_ **  
**_My intimate is no one_ **

**-But Home Is Nowhere, AFI**

Lily looked at the mirror hanging on her wall pensively. She searched her features, her bright red hair, her green eyes, her striking angles, the freckles dusting her nose. 

She thought of her studies, the way she was smart, able to easily keep up and get good grades in all of her classes.

She thought of how everyone would tell her and her parents, “my, what a nice young girl you have on your hands!” or, “how very likable she is! She must have lots of little friends!”, smiling down at her fondly.

She wondered what was wrong with her.

Lily Luna Potter was smart, pretty, and had a fantastic personality. But she also had a secret, one that made her eyes grow glassy every time she thought about it. 

Now, she let one tear fall, tracing a salty path down her cheek, and didn’t wipe it away. She let it fall, watching the tear as it fell towards the ground, following its path in the looking glass.

She let no more fall.

-

“Come on Lil,” Albus whined. “Why won’t you at least give him a shot?”

Lily bit her lip and blinked to ward off the glassiness she knew would soon cover her eyes, which would cause her to eventually wipe away unfallen tears. Albus didn’t need to see that. Albus didn’t need to know.

“He’s… I don’t know, Al. I just… I’m not ready. Okay?” 

Albus pursed his lips. “Scorpius really, really likes you. He’d treat you right, I know he would!”

“I _know,_ Al.” Lily nearly yelled out in frustration. She took a deep breath. “Just come off it. Maybe someday, alright?” 

There wouldn’t be a _someday_ for Scorpius, nor anyone else.

Albus nodded and sighed. “If you’re sure…” He looked at her hopefully, one last time.

She shook her head but sighed as well. “Come on, I’ll take you to the Leaky. My treat.”

Albus smiled, standing up, and pulled her to her feet off the grassy ground.

Long ago, when they were young, they had discovered the best place to break news or talk was beneath an old maple tree at a local park. Now, at twenty-eight and twenty-six, they still returned regularly to the park to discuss their happenings.

Lily offered her arm out to Albus, and they apparated with a crack, the tips of Albus’ trainers and Lily’s boots the last to disappear.

-

Lily walked through the threshold of the Leaky Cauldron, and breathed in deeply and smiled. It smelled of hard liquor and ale, but also vaguely sweet and spicy. The air was warm and the atmosphere even more so, filled with the tinkling sounds of laughter and idle chatter.

“Come _on_ , Lily,” Albus exclaimed, tugging her into the tavern. She laughed and let herself be pulled inside, into the warmth.

When Lily returned with the butterbeers, Albus was looking uncomfortable and sheepish. Lily already knew.

“Oh, go on then,” she sighed, swatting him on the arse as he nearly ran to some friends he had seen with an apologetic smile aimed back at her.

Lily sipped her butterbeer and looked around. A man over at the bar with ruffled brown hair and a dazzling smile caught her eye and grinned. 

She returned the favor, but uneasily. Looking quickly back out the window, she was startled by an old man standing directly in front of her table, smiling down at her.

“Er- can I help you?” Lily implored.

“I was wondering if I could sit down, there aren’t any other tables,” the old man said, with a surprisingly low voice.

“Right,” she replied, nodding. 

As an afterthought: “Do you, er, come here often?” She inwardly winced at her choice of words, and scrabbled at her dignity as the old man simply laughed and threw an answer her way with a wild gesture of his left hand.

“It’s a bloody pub, everyone does.”

Lily smiled quickly, trying to cover her embarrassment, before she suddenly got a glimpse of something on the man’s left hand. 

“Not to be rude- and you certainly… I mean, your left- your hand…” she trailed off awkwardly, wanting desperately to know what it was, while trying not to be a prude finding out.

He laughed and shook his sleeve further up his arm. “S’okay, it’s me wedding ring. Well, was, anyway,” he added with another laugh. 

He was referring to an ugly scar around the fourth finger on his left hand, a thick band of mottled flesh that was a bright, angry red, though the scar looked old.

“Why did she do this to you?” Lily asked softly, eyeing the indentation it made in the skin.

The man looked away.

“Oh, gosh! I swear I didn’t mean it, I mean I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me, really-” Lily blubbered, but the man just sighed and turned to her.

“I didn’t love her.”

“I- what?” 

“I said I didn’t love her.”

Lily didn’t know what to say to that.

The man contemplated her before saying, “I’ve never loved anyone. It was just.. She liked me, and she was a fine person, and because everyone was pressuring me to get married, I figured I might as well so it with her.”

The man stopped and bit his lip. “It felt so wrong. I have friends, and I love them more than anything. I have family and I have people that I love so much that they’re like family. But I’ve never liked anyone in that way, and… she could tell.”

Lily listened, enraptured, wondering how on earth that scar tied into this story. 

“She cursed my wedding ring, one day, when she noticed I would take the ring off whenever she wasn’t home. She warned me to keep it on, but I didn’t listen. When I tried, I found I couldn’t take it off.”

At this the man looked at her.

“I cursed it off.”

The words hung there, heavy. The man didn’t need to continue. Lily understood. He couldn’t bear to see the ring on his finger, a symbol of love he didn’t have. So he’d cursed it off, a worthy trade.

Lily swallowed, and bit the inside of her cheek. This man was just like her. Filled with bottomless love, but never for just one person.

She shakily reached out and touched the man’s arm. 

He looked up and understood the look in her eye.

They didn’t say anything for a long time.

-

Lily looked at herself in the mirror.

She no longer felt caged, enclosed, shut out. 

She had a place in this world. 

Like that man. 

She didn’t have to love any _one_. She could love everyone.

She could be content with being with herself. 

That was alright with her.

She jutted up her chin, and stood straight. 

She admired her features because all of this was _her._

Her grades were _her._

Her personality was _her._

Everything she was, was _her._

She didn’t have a label, and she didn’t want a label, but realizing was enough.

She made a mental note to tell her family as soon as she felt ready, and looked one more time in the mirror.

Lily Luna Potter wasn’t attracted to anybody.

She loved that about herself.

And the looking glass finally showed _Lily_.


End file.
